I'm in New England this week, and this afternoon caught Ann Coulter on the Howie Carr show. She spoke of the amazing ignorance of liberals when it comes to firearms. Just a couple of hours later, Chris Matthews provided a perfect case in point.

On this evening's Hardball, speaking with Illinois Dem Senator Dick Durbin, Matthews proposed that Congress "outlaw" semi-automatic weapons. Does he not realize that doing so would render illegal virtually every hunting rifle in production? View the video after the jump.

In all seriousness, did Matthews not understand the implications of what he was saying, or was knowledge trumped by the blind desire to say something bold in light of the Newtown outrage?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: It's not hopeless, though. You talk about the Second Amendment. Look, in 1934 we had Machine Gun Kelly and all the guys out in Chicago. We had the whole Prohibition era encouraging a certain kind of crime; rum-running, etc. Here's the question. Back then, Congress had the guts to outlaw automatic weapons, machine guns, basically they did. Heavily regulated. Heavily regulated. Almost to the point you don't find them around. Here's the question: why can't Congress do the same thing to semi-automatics? I know we've got millions of them, whatever. Can't we start to regulate? We don't have to regulate a shotgun or a regular pistol with a revolver or anything. But if you go into the semi-automatic level, why don't we say, that's like the automatic weapon. Just go for that. Courts would have to approve it. Cause they approved the earlier one, didn't they? Isn't there a precedent?

Instead of pointing the finger at gun owners, why not look at Hollywood. Chris Rock just bragged that in his latest movie, “he got to kill all the white people.” Hollywood constantly glamorizes “life in the hood,” language that no one should be using in public and can’t get enough of the word “nigger,” and then THEY feel free to point fingers at other groups. ‘’’

No one - and I mean, no one, has more to do with the deterioration of decent behavior and lack of value on human life and decency than Hollywood. We should be pointing out in every blog and at every opportunity that Hollywood - instead of pointing outward - should be pointing at themselves.

It may be time to start negotiating with Chrissy. If he’s interested in placing stringent, stipulated requirements for the exercise of a constitutional right, he might also approve of literacy and intelligence tests for voting. He might also consider the enactment of a lower threshold for a lawsuit against a so-called journalist for character assassination or jail time for plagiarists.

The Miller decision of 1939 ruled, implicitly, that one need not be a member of a Militia to be covered by the Second Amendment. It also ruled that arms that are not useful to a Militia are not covered by the Second Amendment.

Lower court rulings have since that time seriously mis-applied that ruling, rendering their decisions rather meaningless except for the unwillingness of the Supreme Court to take appeals.

I haven't read any analysis that the Heller decision overruled the Miller decision, but that is the only reasonable conclusion. Because of that, any lower court rulings are very much outdated.

“On this evening’s Hardball, speaking with Illinois Dem Senator Dick Durbin, Matthews proposed that Congress “outlaw” semi-automatic weapons. Does he not realize that doing so would render illegal virtually every hunting rifle in production?”

Huh?

31
posted on 12/18/2012 8:44:29 PM PST
by Brooklyn Attitude
(Obama being re-elected is the political equivalent of OJ being found not guilty.)

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